How to turn leftovers into electricity

A startup company in Seattle is converting half-eaten burgers, spoiled milk, and spent yeast from a brewery into electricity and fertilizer. Katie Herzog visits Jan Allen, from Impact Bioenergy, to find out how a shipping-container-sized digester converts leftovers into energy.

The biodigesters are becoming more and more prevalent as they show to be economically viable for those installing them. They are commonly used in wastewater treatment plants to break down “sludge” that is removed in the treatment process, and many of these plants capture the methane produced, clean it a bit, then use it to power their plant. Alternatively, you can compress the cleaned gas and inject it into existing natural gas pipelines and get paid by the utility.